We went to the movies Friday night and when I came home the computer was dead. It would try to turn on, but either turn itself off before it booted up, or go part way through the bios tests and then give an error.
So I got to spend all of Saturday trying to find out what was wrong with it, which appears to be that the motherboard itself croaked. I've only had it 7 months or so, it should have lasted for years. I got a new motherboard from CompUSA though, and it works again. Of course, it took two trips to CompUSA because I forgot on the first trip that I would have to take the heatsink off the processor to install it and needed new thermal paste to go with it. I finally finished playing with it around 11pm.
Luckily the RAID was intact on the hard drives, so I didn't have to reinstall windows and all my programs. I would have been very upset if I had lost all my data. As it is, the day I usually set aside for doing school work was completely taken up working on that. I could do most of my school stuff on the other computer, but it is easier to use this one. At least it works.
I got everything except the sound card and speakers on Friday, so I spent friday night assembling it all and installing Windows XP. It went surprisingly smoothly, with a few exceptions.
The first problem was that I used the wrong screws to install the motherboard into the case. The directions said use the "philips head screws" but of course all the screws are philips head, so which ones? I tried some until I found ones that fit, and went with those. Of course, when I got to the hard drive installation, it said to use the "special screws" (who writes these instructions?) and it turned out that those were the ones that I had used on the motherboard, so I had to take them all out. Once I did that, it was smooth sailing.
The computer actually turned on first try, so I was pleased. Everything appeared to be working, until I tried the front USB ports and the card reader, which also connects to the motherboard's USB connectors. I wasn't getting any errors, but windows was ignoring both devices. I tried installing the USB bracket that came with the motherboard, and has lights that indicate if it is working or not, and it said things were fine, but still no response from windows. Finally I took out all the connectors for the USB (12 of them) and plugged just the drive in, and that worked fine. So I carefully reinstalled the the 10 pins for the front panel USB ports, and it worked fine after that. Apparently I had mis-installed at least one of the jumpers, and it disabled the entire USB system.
In any case, it all works well, and so I was happy
In other news, the Monitor came today, and took just a few minutes to set it up. It looks really nice, and other than having to setup the screen a bit to fit correctly, it works well.
In major annoyances, Buy.com still hasn't shipped my sound card and speakers. They're both on order apparently. It would have been nice if they had let me know before I sent them email asking where my stuff was. There's no estimate at all on when they will get there either. I'm a bit annoyed, but it isn't the end of the world. I'm waiting ot activate windows until I have the sound card installed though, so it has the correct configuration set. Windows can get upset if you change the hardware after installing windows. Hopefully it will all come soon, and I can finish putting everything together.
I'm pretty pleased with the performance overall, it starts up really quickly, and installs programs in no time. I haven't done anything taxing on it so far, but things look good.
I took pictures along the way, but haven't played with them yet so I can't put them up here. I will at some point though.
Nothing for day 4, so now it's day 5. I missed the fedex dropoff, they came at 11am, as if someone would be home then. They left the door slip to sign and they'll leave it tomorrow if nobody is here. There probably will be, but you never know, so hopefully I"ll have it tomorrow.
Otherwise, nothing new. The monitor is still en route from CA, with no new tracking information, and the stuff from Buy.com has not been shipped yet, as far as I can tell. I've bought stuff from them before, and it hasn't taken so long to ship, so I'm a bit bummed. It's not a big deal really, but I would have liked to work on the system this weekend, and it is a little difficult without all the pieces :)
More if it happens
Not a whole lot new today. My packages from Newegg.com shipped. There are two packages, presumably one is the case, and one is everything else. They left CA on July 26, 12:02pm, and are currently being held in Indianapolis, IN (as of 2:04pm, so they may have moved again without the site being updated). The delivery estimate for both is July 29, before 4:30pm. The monitor is slowly moving along, but it appears to be going by mule, as it is due to arrive August 2nd. It has left CA, but I don't know where it is now.
The items from Buy.com don't appear to have left the warehouse yet. So far things are progressing about as expected: I'll be waiting for the sound card. Oh well, I'll have most of it this weekend.
I spent a little time earlier today uninstalling software from my current computer that I don't use anymore, and making a list of what I do use so that I know what I have to do to setup the new machine when I have it built. There's a fair amount of software to install, but it could be worse. I certainly don't have to do it all in one sitting, there are only a few things that I consider manditory.
Until tomorrow...
Today I went to CompUSA very briefly, and got the video card. We didn't waste any time in the store, just went to the case, said we wanted it, paid, and got out. There's no reason to stay in there longer than necessary. I worked there years ago, and know first hand that most of the people that work there are not especially helpful. So anyway, I've got my first item sitting around waiting for the rest to arrive.
The only other update is that the monitor has shipped, so that should be here fairly soon. So that's a pretty good day for CompUSA, surprisingly enough. Both the other sites I ordered from are still processing at the warehouse. Newegg.com says that it is sealed and ready to ship already, so hopefully that'll go out tomorrow and be here in a few days. I predicted as soon as I put in the orders that I would be sitting around waiting for Buy.com to send the sound card once everything else was here, and I think that's going to be correct. Hopefully it'll all be here this weekend though, and I can spend my days off doing assembly.
More as it occurrs...
Well, I've finally decided to put my months of browsing computer parts to use, and ordered everything needed to build my next computer. I had hoped to be able to build 2 at the same time, so that Sabrina and I could both have one, but we decided to do one now, and one later, so that I'll have mine ready to go when school starts up again in september.
I'm planning to document everything as I go, so here's what I've done on 7/25/2004.
I bought parts from three sites, depending on what was the best deal at the time.
I also have one more purchase to make at CompUSA, but I have to wait until I can actually to the store, and use the gift card I got from CitiBank with my rewards points.
As stuff arrives in the mail, or I buy it, I will make updates and take pictures. It's been a while since I assembled an entire computer, but hopefully it will go relatively smoothly.